


let the flames begin

by wanderlustnostalgia



Series: show me no mercy (let it rain) [1]
Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Angst, Cameos, Changing Tenses, Drug Addiction, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hunger Games, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, Suicide Attempt, Violence, nice, oh wow a trohley fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-14
Updated: 2017-09-09
Packaged: 2018-12-15 05:31:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11799444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderlustnostalgia/pseuds/wanderlustnostalgia
Summary: Nobody amounts to much in Five.  You’re expected to go to school, and then go to work, and raise a family and then die happy, and that’s just the way it is.Joe’s never been all that good at sticking to plan, though.--Joe Trohman vs. the Hunger Games.





	1. PROLOGUE - the tribute

**Author's Note:**

> My other fics have a glaring lack of Joe Trohman, so to make up for it I threw him into the Hunger Games :D :D
> 
> Thanks for reading, hope you enjoy!

Joe’s always felt like he has this spark—this flicker of something deep inside him that he can’t quite describe except it feels like the beginnings of something _more._   It sounds nuts when he says it out loud and he doesn’t really dwell on it too much, because it feels weird and _wrong_ to even acknowledge the idea of being Destined for Greatness or whatever when you live in a place where capital-G Greatness isn’t something you aspire to (not that he’d want to—he’s seen how those kids turn out).  It’s just—it’s there, and he feels it, low and warm deep in the recesses of his chest like if he tried hard enough, he could reach out and grab it and unleash it on everyone—the District, the Capitol, the whole of Panem.

He told this to Andy once, though he hadn’t meant to—he’d blurted it out on the floor of Pete’s basement, the smell of weed and District Seven-smuggled moonshine hanging thick in the air.  Smoke had billowed from his lips when he spoke and Andy turned on his side to face him, propped himself up on one elbow, a black bandanna tied over his mouth to block out the chemicals.

Andy said, quietly, “Tell me more.”

Joe’s face grew hot and he waved him off, let out a nervous snort.  “Nah, dude, I can’t, it’s stupid.  You won’t get it.”

“Try me,” Andy said.  Even in darkness, with the only light coming from the orange sparks of the blunt in Joe’s hand, he could see Andy’s eyes crinkling, the faint hint of a smile.

Joe let out another breath, lips pursed.  He imagined a candle, glowing in the dark, blown out by the mere force of that spark of _something_ residing in him.  The thought of holding that much power, in a district that dedicated its only power to the Capitol, made him shiver.

“Promise not to laugh,” he said, vaguely croaky.

“Promise,” Andy echoed, his eyes wide and sincere.

Joe took in a deep breath, the blunt wavering in his trembling fingers.  His mouth felt unusually dry; he wished he had water or booze or _something_ to fix it, though he wasn’t sure whether it was smoke or nerves or something else entirely.  But he began to speak anyway, and Andy didn’t laugh, not once.  He listened and nodded and then, when Joe could feel his eyelids drooping, the pull of sleep calling him despite his best efforts to ward it off, Andy took off his glasses, tugged down his bandanna, and placed a hand on Joe’s cheek, gentle, light.

“You’re pretty fuckin’ special, you know that, Trohman?” he murmured, running a thumb along the pimpled surface of Joe’s cheek, the sharp line of Joe’s jaw.  “That thing you’ve got in you, that spark or whatever it is—it’s there for a reason.  Don’t ignore it, you hear me?  Your life depends on it.”

(Joe nodded.  At least, he thinks he did.  Honestly, after the whole face-touching thing, which had sent his confused, teenage hormonal brain into a flurry of confusion and excitement, everything’s kind of a blur.

The message was pretty clear, though.)

 

That was four years ago.

It’s amazing how much can happen in four years.  Joe shot up five inches, started growing facial hair, managed to break his nose twice—and that’s just everything that happened to _him._

He has to wonder, looking back on it, if maybe Andy knew what was coming—if that one night, lying on the floor of Pete’s basement, was a clue, an indication of things to come.  Andy was always the smartest of them all, always one step ahead of the game, always guessing the next move before anyone else thought to anticipate it.

Maybe that’s why he left.

And maybe that’s why, two months later, the morning Pete was reaped, Joe woke up with a sinking feeling in his stomach and the clatters and bangs of the power plant in the distance ringing in his ears like a death knell.


	2. ONE - the reaping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The second name isn't his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've rewritten this chapter _so_ many times, I'm sorry it took so long :( As for Antivenom, I promise to start working on it again soon, I'm so sorry to keep you waiting! Anyway, hope you enjoy the update  <3

“At some point,” Pete told him, “you stop being afraid.  It’s like—you know there’s a threat, but you just don’t care anymore.  It becomes tedious, like—just a whole lot of nothing, you know what I’m saying?”

They were in Pete’s basement, in the new house.  Joe sat on the couch, absently strumming at his brand-new guitar (“straight from Three’s factories,” Pete had told him, handing it to him with a smile that didn’t sit quite right on his face); Pete was curled up in his new armchair, a bottle of some fancy Capitol liquor in one hand and his bass lying neglected across his lap.  The scene should’ve felt familiar, no different than all those other times he came to Pete’s house just to fuck around, but there was an uneasiness, a sense of _something_ that felt foreign to Joe, like a radiator whose humming goes off-rhythm just enough to be noticeable without being obvious.  He told himself it was the new setting, that it was still jarring to see his best friend wrapped in a ridiculously fluffy robe, living in the lap of luxury, but deep down he knew it was more than that.  So, so much more.

“What _are_ you saying?” Joe finally asked, when the silence had gone on for a beat too long.

Pete looked at him like he was stupid.  Lately (ever since he got back from the Capitol, started drinking more, eating less, taking those _pills_ ) he’d been doing that a lot.

“I’m saying,” he said, taking a long, hard swig from the bottle, “that it bites you in the ass.”

 

\--

 

Sia Furler calls two names.

The first name Joe doesn’t hear because it’s hot and he’s sweaty and there are people pressing up against him from all sides, like a mosh pit but without the violence or excitement and definitely not the music, and the only thing he can concentrate on is Sia’s stupid hairbow, which sits smack on top of her head and looks far too big to be comfortable.

He does see the new tribute, walking to the stage with goosebumps prickling on her skin, in spite of the dry, fiery air.  He recognizes her as Marie Goble; they knew each other, when they were younger, but time and circumstance (her father’s death, his teenage delinquency) drove a wedge between them.  Onstage she looks ten again, her dark hair braided in two pigtails, her eyes wide, frozen in shock and fear.  Her arms are wrapped around herself.  Joe tears his gaze away and it lands on Pete, who’s slumped over in his chair and is so obviously hungover that it would be hilarious if it wasn’t so pathetic.

Joe’s name is in the bowl seven times.  A lot of people have their names in the bowl seven times.  Some even took tesserae, the ones who live in cramped apartments closer to the plant, the ones who cough and wheeze and never show up to school because of all the smoke in their lungs.  He can’t say the odds are in his favor but then, again, he can’t exactly say they’re not.

Still, as Sia swirls her hand around the bowl, eating up just enough time to keep the Capitol audience in suspense without trying their patience, his heart is in his throat.  His nails are digging into his palms and he can feel his teeth, grinding against each other, but he can’t bring himself to release the tension.  There is too much at stake.  There will always be too much at stake.

“Our male tribute,” says Sia, triumphantly plucking an envelope from the glass.  She grins as she pulls it open, and Joe holds his breath.

The second name isn’t his.

It’s Andrew Wentz’s.

 

They say before you die, your life flashes before your eyes.  They say nothing about watching friends, or loved ones, or friends of loved ones or loved ones of friends, the people treasured so dearly by those you hold close that they become part of you, that you feel the ache when they are hurt.

Joe’s entire life does not flash before his eyes.  Not exactly.

Images blur through his head, jumbled and scrambled, but they’re all from the past four years, all these moments piled up on top of each other that seemed small at the time but now, he realizes, might actually be bigger than he thought.  He’s fourteen and watching Pete onscreen, tearing into District One’s chest, his hands and face stained with Career blood.  He’s fifteen and at the train station, squeezing Pete with all the strength in his stupid skinny arms, and Pete is stiff and unresponsive as a board.  He’s sixteen in the doorway of the hospital room, jeans stained with Pete’s vomit, and Pete’s thirteen-year-old brother is gripping the bedside with white knuckles, tear tracks drawing lines like lightning bolts down his cheeks; he’s seventeen, and Andy is gone and Pete is alive but not really and nothing makes sense anymore.

Someone jostles him with an elbow to the ribs and he’s eighteen again, and no time has passed, and Sia’s grinning manically out at the audience and there, on the screen, magnified a thousand times larger than his normal size, is a boy, fifteen years old with dark eyes and darker curls, and a face that should be darker than it is, white as a sheet.  A girl screams hysterically from somewhere in the back and Joe doesn’t have to look to know that she has those same eyes, that same face, crumpled in on itself with grief.

Those same eyes, that same face, up onstage, bloodshot and stricken, its owner standing from his chair, fighting back tears, his former mentor gripping his arm tight enough to leave a bruise.  All of Panem’s eyes are on them and in that moment, eyes still locked on Pete mouthing _no, no,_ over and over like a prayer that he knows will never be answered, Joe makes a decision.

With his heart pounding like a kickdrum beating in his chest, and that spark of _something_ burning in his lungs, he shouts, “I volunteer as tribute.”


End file.
